Taxi license applicants could have to provide their work permits, states the Ministry. A foreigner without work permission can no longer work as a taxi driver

Taxi
license applicants will probably have to prove their residence as well as their
work permit in the Czech Republic. This envisages a proposal of the Ministry of
Transportation, which should prevent foreign taxi drivers without work permits,
states Filip Medelský from the Ministry of Transportation. The proposal is a
part of an amendment to the Road Transportation Act, which changes the rules
for operating taxi services.

The
amendment itself brings several fundamental changes. For example, the
obligation to have a taximeter or roof lamp in the vehicle should be abandoned.
Besides, certain powers of cities to regulate taxis, such as topography tests,
should be limited.

Now, the
ministry has modified the amendment; identifying the rules for proving residence
and work permits of foreign taxi driver license applicants. Foreigners from
outside the EU will need to provide proof of a permit to municipal authorities
when applying for a license.

Prague City
Hall, for example, applied for the possibility to check the work permits of
applicants for a license. The Office is not yet able to carry out these checks.
The municipality has issued around 1300 driving licenses to drivers from
so-called third countries outside the EU in the last two years alone.

Carriers
usually agree with the change. According to the director of Lifatgo, Ondřej
Krátký, without the modification, the amendment would favor drivers from
abroad. “Today, the authorities cannot check whether the applicant has a
driving license, let alone a work permit,” he said. Bolt also agrees with
the change and welcomes the possibility for drivers to apply for a license with
any transportation office.

There are
several third-country nationals among transportation service drivers,
especially with alternative mobile platforms. There are over 2000 of them in
Prague. According to experts, there are even more of them operating without a
license. For example, Novinky.cz server reported in January a case where Prague
police officers detained a driver who was transporting customers without
permission and showed up with an Uzbek passport, a Ukrainian driving license,
and a Polish visa.

Taxi
drivers have long criticized the government for not sufficiently enforcing
legal conditions against alternative carriers. According to them, Uber and
Taxify violate the law because their drivers drive without a license, and they
may not meet the same conditions as conventional taxi operators. These
obligations now include, in particular, a mandatory taximeter, vehicle
identification, and topography tests.

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